require supervisors to report romance?

System

I am looking for oppinions on whether we should have a policy requiring supervisors involved in a superior/subordinate relationship to disclose the relationship to management (and to disclose the end of the relationship). Keep in mind that we are talking about restaurants. We know we do not want to prohibit relationships.

Personal and romantic relationships are common in restaurants. It almost seems better to have an unwritten don't ask don't tell approach. Do we want to be stuck regulating them, even if we can be held liable if they go bad?

Right now the policy does not prohibit relationships but states that we have the discretion to separate the parties to avoid any actual or perceived conflict of interest that results. We also state that we reserve the right not to intervene unless a conflict of interest is reported, investigated, and determined to be an acutal conflict of interest.

JM in ATL

If your supervisors are going to get into relationships with subordinates then it doesn't matter if you have a policy or not. If they don't respect your Anti-Fraternization policy then they aren't going to report it.

I come from a restaurant background as well - it was not tolerated and supervisors would be transferred if a relationship did happen. It was frowned upon. Socialization is one thing, but fraternization is another. The fine line is often broken.

HRinFL

I agree with JM. You need to address it in your handbook, you need to make sure your try to discourage it. Problems will arise otherwise. Other ees will know, no matter how discreet they are/think they are. Then you here why so-in-so is getting better schedules (i.e.more tips), etc. Others will think that it is because s/he is "banging the boss."

Because it is common in the restaurant business does not mean that you cannot discourage it.

marc

One of the big problems with don't ask, don't tell comes when the EE being supervised brings forward a sexual harassment lawsuit and the company loses.

I also don't want to be involved with monitoring these relationships, but you cannot stick your head in the sand. At a minimum, you need a good harassment policy, with effective training to go with it, and it must be communicated to all.

deniseE

The other issue is the management of such a policy. If both parties deny a relationship...how do you go about confirming its existance? How much capital are you willing to invest?

We've run into this time and time again...and personally, I have a hard time authorizing employee hours to figure out who's having lunch with whom, how frequently and where.

LivindonSouth

Unless my observations and understanding are way off, drug use and homosexuality in the wait-staff community are also above the norm. What sort of 'relationships' are you prepared to 'monitor' and 'discourage'? And why does your industry, by and large, not drug screen its employees and candidates? It's my understanding that it's well known you can work in this industry without fear of post-offer or random screens. Why worry about who is dating somebody? As somebody above said, you'll just drive it underground trying to monitor it.

LarryC

You already have a policy, needahero. It's the last sentences in your 1st and 3rd paragraphs. Hopefully you also have a harassment policy to cover the situation marc brought up.

Requiring supervisors to report relationships won't be too effective. They're the last ones to know.

System

We do have several policies in place that address the issues brought up- harassment/sexual harrassment, personal relationships, alcohol/drug use, etc.

The part I am still wavering on is whether we want our policy to have a statement that requires supervisors to report subordinate/supervisor relationsips and the end of that relationship.

I hesitate to put that statement in because we do not prohibit relationships and already reserve the right to interviene if need be (and the responsibility to then monitor the relationship). The reason to have the reporting statement seems to be to be aware of supervisor/subordinate relationships, get confirmation from both parties that it is of mutual consent and leave them alone unless problems with favoratism or harassment arise. My understanding of liability is that the main reason to have this statement is to be proactive since we are responsible for the behaviors of our supervisors, especially quid pro quo sexual harassment.


Do you think the statement is unnecessary as long as we reserve the right to intervene?

Whatever

I think you have to decide what you want your policy to be. Our policy is to discourage superior/subordinate relationships. We do not prohibit. However, either the superior or the subordinate will be moved to different department. The intent is not to penalize, but to prevent the actual or perceived favoritism, harrassment etc.
Frankly, I would never want to be put in the position of asking everybody in a superior/subordinate relationship if it something they really want to do or how intimate the relationship actually is.

LarryC

Yes, I think it is unnecessary because your going to leave them alone anyway. When harassment or favoritism issues arise, you have the policies to deal with them. Being burdened with prior knowledge of a relationship won't help you, even though I suspect you'll know about it anyway. As others have stated, don't drive it underground.

Rockie

As part of our non-fraternization policy,supervisors are prohibited from supervising any employee they have a relationship with. If a supervisor develops a relationship with a "subordinate", then they are required to divulge this relationship to management. One of them has to be transferred out of the department.

We discourage this type of "romance" because of the implications it has (sexual harassment, favortism, etc.). Our physicians are also required to divulge if they have any type of romantic relationship or begin such a relationship with an employee.

But, we also realize these things go on all the time and are not reported. It always helps from a legal standpoint that there is a policy in place in case something comes up.

We have had a couple of instances with romances gone bad between two employees with a pregnancy resulting from one couple (both married to other people). This was not a pleasant thing.

System

Finally, someone with common sense has spoken (Rockie). To ignore personal relationships in the workplace is ludicrous, and the implications of allowing (or at least not discouraging) them leads to a whole host of potential problems too many to mention here. Of course they're going to happen; but you better have a policy that strongly discourages, if not outright forbids them, at least in a supervisor/subordinate situation. To turn a blind eye to the potentially destructive consequences of intimate relationships in the workplace is, in essence, encouraging unequal treatment,favoratism, unprofessional conduct and possible sexual harassment allegations. And yes, have those in a relationship report it to managment so that it can be dealt with in a manner that attempts to protect the organization, as well as the individuals involved.

LarryC

But that's not THEIR policy. My answer to the original question was based on THEIR policy, not YOURS.

System

That makes no sense. You don't prohibit the relationships to begin with, yet you reserve the right to intervene and monitor? If you are specifically stating that you are reserving that right, aren't you admitting that those relationships are potentially disrutive and counterproductive? If the answer to that is yes, why in the hell don't you have a policy that prohibits them to begin with. Just because a certain behavior is difficult to stop or control doesn't mean there shouldn't be a policy in place that forbids the behavior. Stealing may be difficult to control or monitor, does that mean we shouldn't have a policy that forbids it? Wake up folks. Quit being so damn mamby pamby about what you expect out of your employees.

HRLASS

Your third paragraph re the policy sounds fine. Considering your concerns, how about adding something like "Romantic relationships between superiors and subordinates are discouraged, and should be reported to management," and continue with "we have the discretion to separate..." and "we reserve the right not to intervene..."?